I laid my request before her, M. Picot, be it understood, being present when I did so, and my poor mother turned quite pale.
"Oh, M. Picot!" she said to him, "when we have the examples of M. Denré and of your poor nephew Stanislas before our eyes, how can you have the heart to take him from me?"
"Good gracious! I am not taking him away from you," M. Picot replied. "I do not want to be accused of leading away a child under age: I wanted to give him a bit of pleasure; the boy is crazy after shooting, and you know whom he takes after in that respect.... If you do not want him to enjoy himself we will say no more about it."
Although I did not appreciate his meaning at first, his way of putting things was clever; for, though brief (a great virtue in a lawyer's phrases), it contained two irresistible arguments: "You know whom he takes after in that respect," and "If you do not want him to enjoy himself we will say no more about it."
Now I "took after" my father, and to tell my mother that I was like my father, that I had my father's voice, that I had my father's tastes, was a great inducement.
My dear good mother would have given her last farthing to give me pleasure, and to suggest that she did not wish to let me enjoy myself was a great stab to her, and an additional argument in my favour.
Even his peroration was studied. The "we will say no more about it" was said in a careless manner, as though his thoughts ran thus: "Goodness me, keep your young rascal to yourself, if you wish; it was only out of good-nature I wanted to take him. And if you do not care for me to assist in his education as a sportsman, so much the less trouble for me; we will say no more about it."
And, to my intense amazement, instead of accepting the "we will say no more about it" as final, my mother sighed, and after a moment's thinking she began:
"Ah well! I know true enough that if he does not go shooting with you, he will go shooting with someone else, or even all alone. Taking everything into consideration, then, I would much rather confide him to you, for you are cautious."
M. Picot winked at me out of the corner of one eye, as though to say, "Be quick, snatch this tardy consent as though it were whole-hearted."